No Kozlov

Injured forward Viktor Kozlov is not on the ice at all today. That probably means he won't play tomorrow in New York, but I won't be able to confirm that until after practice.

Kozlov has missed the past two games with a groin muscle injury. It appeared he was making progress yesterday since he skated briefly with the team. But apparently, he has had a setback or isn't as far along as he thought.

Bull @ gtydings -- Kozlov creates a lot more space for OV than Nylander. He is willing to pull pucks from the boards and two defenders on him to free up OV for one-timers. Nylander skates in circles and pulls up on the rush giving the opposition time to set up. Nylander also gives up the puck a lot easier than Koz and does not back check well.

As the VC ice worsens, I wonder if they have the Kettler folks make that rink worse too. I was on that rink last night and it was bad, bad, bad. It might explain why they are so awesome at home, as its a "unique" skating opportunity.

Kozlov career assist per game: 0.37 for 830 games
Nyls assist per game: 0.53 for 848 games. They have just about the same amount of assists this year with Kozlov playing 2-3 minutes more per game and with much better players than Nyls.

Nyls'a much better passer and can get the puck to Ovie under pressur much better than Kozlov.

Rangers aren't very impressive... But they're also seriously slumping and have to break out at some point. Couple that with the recent dominance that the Caps have displayed over them and this game is rather worrisome.

Where are you getting your stats for Kozlov-Ovechkin vs. Nylander-Ovechkin? You're handing out stats for the careers of these two skaters. That's not entirely relevant to the situation here. I'd like to see:

* Assists per game when on a line with Ovechkin.
* Assists per game when NOT on a line with Ovechkin.

THAT would be the relevant statistic in this case, and would support or tear down your argument quite nicely. Career stats do not.

@ratgurl46: I have to agree. They need to break out at some point. Not gloom and doom so much as we need to look sharp and pay attention or we will lose our #2 seed. We can't afford to slack now; home ice in the first two rounds of the playoffs is nothing to sneeze at.

Did Kozlov hurt himself at Verizon? Frustrating. I saw Poti slam the ice surface also. You would think it would get better. What's it going to take, OV getting injured before things improve? Have they made any changes to improve the ice since last season?